Man With Two Faces
by lordpercydarling
Summary: The Doctor, Amy, Rory, River Song and the TARDIS are intercepted in mid flight and placed in an automated bubble outside of time and space. With the fate of being trapped for all time looming can The Doctor save his friends and his future?
1. Chapter 1

**Man with two faces**

Temporal Hiking

"Aaaahh..." the Doctor groaned as he sat up from the floor "another happy landing"

Across the TARDIS the two Ponds were also beginning to come to "what was that?" Rory moaned accusingly

"Minor operational function fluctuation" he blustered as his ears popped

"That means he hurt the TARDIS' feelings so she threw a tantrum" River, who miraculously was still on her feet, told him knowingly.

The Doctor hopped to his feet, straightening his bow-tie and vaguely registering the condescending look he was getting as he helped Rory to pull Amy to her feet

"Right, unintentional landing but never mind, think of it as the TARDIS on shuffle" he began zooming about the console prodding controls and stroking things "anyone for a butchers?"

"Wait" said Amy, stepping forward "don't we need to check the atmosphere's safe and all that first?"

"Good idea, Pond, won't be a minute" the doctor scurried off down the walkway and opened the door. He took a long breath through his nose and shouted "smells weird... never mind" he shot the crew a thumbs up, twirled around on the spot and marched out of the door.

The Ponds turned to River Song who shrugged, smiled and followed him.

A barren moor met them when they left the safety of the TARDIS, thick brush on the ground and hardy grasses. The doctor was a little further uphill climbing onto a great pile of rocks. River had caught up and was also climbing. A strong wind was whipping at the Doctor's clothes as he reached the top and stood into the wind yelling "brilliant!"

Rory gestured to follow him but Amy grabbed his arm pulling him back

"Dress!" she yelled at him, he looked back confused, cupping his ear

She gestured at the short summer dress she was wearing and his eyes registered cognition. He pointed at the TARDIS and mimed putting some trousers on. She raised her eyebrow and trudged back into the time ship.

When she returned from the TARDIS wardrobe in a pair of jeans and a thick woollen jacket the Doctor's voice filtered through from the console room "Brilliant! Bracing!" his eyes were alight "lots of lovely Bs" his eyes alighted on Amy emerging through one of the physically impossible corridors "great isn't it?" he grinned

"Lovely" she replied sarcastically "but where are we?"

"Well that's another brilliant thing, I don't know" he looked like a kid trying to solve a jigsaw "it looks like English moorland, but we're not in England, the TARDIS would know"

River sat as always at the back, the woman of action wasn't used to this slow pace of progress and it showed. Obviously she left the deliberating up to the Doctor.

"Maybe we could... no never mind... stupid Doctor! Stupid!"

"Maybe it's a time eddy" River suggested, bored.

"Time eddy... no, couldn't be... hang on, wait! Time eddy! River, you're brilliant!"

"It was only a guess"

"No it's not a time eddy but you've given me an idea"

"Ok, what's going on?" Rory said, face contorted in confusion

"We've crossed a time stream... or someone's crossed ours, it's happened to me before but there were time lords back then, they could govern how it all worked."

He looked around at three faces first Rory, Amy then River and in those faces he saw utter bewilderment, delight and nostalgia respectively.

"See, when the time lords went to war, they left behind some last minute precautions; they knew they might not return so they prepared the universe for temporal accidents like this. In the old days they'd keep an eye on you, make sure you didn't kill your grandfather, things like that but now there's no one to do that so we've triggered a time lord containment bubble."

Amy piped up "ok, let's start from 'containment bubble' but slowly... in English"

"Think of it as a quarantine ward, it protects the universe from a sudden outbreak of disease; a paradox. Doctors and nurses can go in and out but the patients are stuck inside until they're treated."

"Right, so we're stuck here until we're treated... for what, time flu?"

"Well no, nothing like that, but if it helps..."

River stifled a laugh while the doctor's two companions looked at him blankly.

"Ok, Ponds. Step one; find the paradox, remember it could be an older Amy, a Rory anomaly... I bet it's something to do with you" he shot River a disapproving look, she responded with a look of angelic innocence which made them both laugh.

"We're locked in quarantine... let's go and pick the locks"

For the second time that day, the TARDIS crew left the safety of the doctor's time ship and venture out into the pseudo- countryside, the wind whipped at them throwing the doctor's hair around in flapping motions

The Ponds followed behind he and River, who were conspicuously close, the wind blew hard into their faces making a deafening roaring in their ears that all but incapacitated them, their faces were beaten pink and raw by the savage gale and it was all they could do to just keep moving forwards.

The ground was uneven, sucking bogs grabbed at the group's feet. Several times either Amy or Rory would get a foot stuck and have to help one another out. Somehow up ahead, the doctor and River, who was wearing high heeled boots, carried on without pause.

After what seemed like days but could have been less than an hour, the Doctor turned to his companions, they saw him cup his hands to his mouth and point but his words were whipped away by the deafening gale. They followed the doctor into a small opening in the rocky ground where they were sheltered from the wind.

"What is it?" demanded a flustered Amy, her hair was everywhere and she was quite easily the grumpiest person in the group.

"there's something wrong with the wind" the doctor yelled "River's noticed it too, no matter which way you face it's always blowing directly into your face" he reached up to flatten his fringe down.

"That's all you've got?" Amy bellowed "all this hiking and that's it?"

"Rory control your Scottish wife" the Doctor said

Amy shot him a look that read death itself and the man who had faced down the whole universe countless times and struck fear into emotionless hearts looked worried.

"Basically what this means is that this enclosed environment is repeating itself, it's not actually that big which means it's only a very primitive time lord construct. Basically through a myriad of clever ideas in my head this tells me that the control centre is just over here"

With this, the time lord pressed his hand against the rock they were crouched behind, with a swish, it opened and instead of wind whipped moorland beyond it they saw a short metallic corridor.

"Geronimo"


	2. Chapter 2

Paradox Beginning

The silence of the empty time lord construct was broken by a tortured grinding howl; it throbbed on and off like a mechanical heartbeat and a breeze disturbed the dust.

Out of a disused storage room emerged a man in a black coat; he poked his head through the door and looked around. Seeing the area was abandoned, he strode out into the corridor.

"Ok... interesting" he drew a small metal tool out of his pocket and began running it along the wall. "Time lords..." he whispered to himself as the little probe warbled away "had to be..."

He jogged to the end of the corridor, black sneakers squeaking on the polished floor, before he found himself in a perfectly proportioned cubic anteroom. With a zap and a wave of his sonic device, a burnished metal pedestal rose out of the floor with a tired hum and the man sauntered over to it, brandishing his probe eagerly.

"Excellent... let's get this show on the road!"

With a buzz the dark haired man was a flurry of activity, zapping things and muttering to himself

"Oh, brilliant! You are brilliant" he patted the console "an old containment bubble, I haven't seen one like you in..." he trailed off, realisation on his features "a lifetime..."

The Doctor half ran down the polished corridor, twisting around and walking backwards a few steps every twenty feet or so to look back at his entourage who were stolidly walking at a measured pace, the time lord was becoming increasingly agitated.

"Come on!" he yelled back to them

"We'll get there when we're ready" Rory yelled back

"But what if something's happening and I'm not there to see it?"

"Nothing's happening, we're completely-"

Amy was suddenly interrupted by a colossal sound; like a muted clock bell reverberating through the very walls of the structure in which they stood.

"AMY! ARRRGGHH!" the doctor yelled at her clutching his head in frustration "RUN!"

The narrow corridor flew by, the Doctor sprinting along in front waving his screwdriver in front of him, the Ponds, chasing in his wake and River, inexplicably powering down the corridor in her heels. After a short run the group emerged into a huge cubic chamber, in the centre was a large console covered in flashing red lights.

"something's shocked the system, might have been the other time stream... aaaahhhh! I don't know what to do, ummmmm... River! Amy! Rory! Ideas!" the doctor flew around the console sonicking here and there and brushing his hair out of his eyes.

"well I don't know! Turn it off and on again?" suggested Amy, flustered

"good try pond, but unfair question, I know what I'm going to do anyway!" the doctor flicked the end of his screwdriver out and looked at it "got you!"


	3. Chapter 3

My New Ally's Old Ally

"the signal leads into here" the doctor said, his words paced as his mind worked lightning fast, working out as he spoke what could have lead him to an abandoned storage closet "what are you?"He muttered as if to himself

"Well if you're going to just stand there and gawp, I'll go first" River stomped over and pushed the door open "no..." she whispered as the door creaked slowly open "no..."

"Impossible..." Amy heard the doctor whisper as the door fell open

Before them, almost filling the small room stood the glorious blue of the TARDIS.

"Hang on, didn't we leave it outside?" Rory looked at Amy then the doctor

"The TARDIS has flown herself before..." suggested Amy hopefully

"No!" the doctor barked, uncharacteristically troubled "this isn't my TARDIS... it feels different..."

"Only yours is stuck as a police box" River reminded him "this has to be your TARDIS... or maybe..." she trailed off

The Doctor looked into River's eyes and she into his. She could see the centuries old mind whirring and she saw pain, as if the wound in time itself was also a wound that he felt himself. The doctor had once said that he could feel the movement of the universe itself and in those eyes she knew that she was right.

"Yes" he nodded gently and visibly trying to brighten up turned to Amy and Rory

"What our frankly marvellous companion here has deduced is that this TARDIS is our TARDIS... the question is whether it's our TARDIS now..."

"So there are two of the same TARDIS here?" Amy confirmed with the time lord

"Exactly, this one either was or will be mine... I don't know which is worse, one of the old me's being young and careless-"

River cut him off "or a future you knowing something you don't" she smiled knowingly "you know we can't go in" she tilted her head towards her old friend

"you mean you can't risk it" he clarified for the ponds "because if it's future me then past you might have been in it, any further paradoxes will lock this bubble so that only a time lord could release us. River can't touch it and nor can I, understand Ponds?"

They nodded, quickly

"Right... let's go and find me..."


	4. Chapter 4

Mutual Benefit

"So where are we gonna look?" Amy asked, breathless as they ran down corridor after corridor

"Anywhere... if you were me where would you hide?" the doctor stopped "wait... I AM me..."

The rest of the TARDIS crew stopped, gasping for air as the doctor paced and talked to himself

"I'm me, and if I were trapped on a space station outside of time, I'd be doing exactly what I was doing before; trying to get us out. Where's the perfect place to do that? The control room! I've been going in completely the wrong direction!" and with that he sprinted back down the hallway.

Finally the Doctor emerged into the cubic room

"There you are! What kept you so long? I've been here for ages!"

The doctor crossed the room slowly, disbelieving. The man who stood before him was clearly none of his former bodies; he was somewhat shorter than the younger doctor, his long floppy hair had been replaced by a shorter head of almost black hair similar in style to the Doctor's 10th regeneration. He wore the same skinny jeans as the bow tie loving, youthful doctor along with a pair of black converse sneakers. Along with this he wore a three quarter length black jacket over a navy and cream checked shirt and into his jacket's inside pocket was tucked a familiar, yet different piece of equipment

"My screwdriver!" the younger doctor yelped "what happened to it?"

"It got lost, I started using the one River gave us" the older man replied "I know, cheating, but it's really useful!"

"So you're me?" The Tweed jacketed alien advanced on his older counterpart

"Not that I'd admit to it" the smaller, older Doctor replied, eyes twinkling "bowties? Really? What was I thinking?"

"Bowties are cool!"

The dark haired time lord chuckled to himself

"How many regenerations has it been?" asked the younger man

"Just the one luckily; I'm number 12" he straightened his black jacket "any companions in tow doctor?"

The younger man whirled around, he'd completely forgotten about them in his moment of excitement. He turned back to the older time lord, planning to say something

"Good to see I was nice and vigilant in my youth" and doctor number 12 bustled past his counterpart and hurried off down the corridor.

"I still want to know more about you" the older man said as they walked "maybe I can place where you are... post-pandorica?"

"Done" said the younger man

"Come to think of it, your companions'll be the telling factor"

"I think you're going to be pleasantly surprised"

The two doctors rounded a corner, momentum carrying the elder into a short skid which carried him into the centre of the corridor. When he came back to his feet, he found himself face to face with River.

A tiny gasp escaped her lips as she looked into his face, somehow the doctor couldn't hold her gaze.

"Hello sweetie" River smiled, a small tear in her eye

The older doctor looked up, a little redder as he sheepishly grinned at her.

"Honey, I'm home" he said quietly and then pulled her to him as she broke down.

"It's so wrong..." she kept muttering through the tears "so wrong..."

"I know it is..." the black coated man told her standing her up straight "luckily our, admittedly rather dashing... in a nerdy sort of way, friend here has a solution. Don't worry; we're technically the same person so it's not cheating"

The older man shot her a cheeky smirk and span around in a typically doctor-ish twirl of movement. The younger doctor stood flanked by Amy and Rory all looking bemused and awkward.

"No I don't" he said awkwardly "I was hoping you might already know what to do"

"Of course you do, I'm still here so you must've thought of a solution even if we don't remember it"

"Well why's it my job" the younger version squared up to his counterpart, demonstrating his height advantage of a good few inches

"Because you're the doctor" the shorter man stood his ground

"So are you" the tweed wearer bit back

The 12th doctor span around to face river, rolling his eyes in frustration

"Was I really this stroppy?" he asked her, receiving a knowing smile "ugh... alright, we'll do this together" and he strode off back towards the control room.


	5. Chapter 5

Back in the control room, the centre console was in bits, a frame and some complex wires and crystals while great panels of gallifreyan patterns lay on the ground; between all the loose components the two doctors clambered around sonicing things and talking to each other rapidly. Amy leant over towards river

"Doesn't the TARDIS translate Doctor speak?"

"I think it confuses her as much as us"

River smiled, a little distracted eyes flicking between doctors.

"Damn!" grunted the older doctor "doctor!" he called his opposite

"What? What is it?"

"We're missing an Arxos' coupling, I'll have to head back to the TARDIS, can I borrow one of your friends?"

"Be quick" he said, barely lifting his head "don't take River, we can't risk another paradox"

"Rory, you've just volunteered, sorry Amy, Arxos' coupling; big, heavy!"

And with that he strode out of the room.

"Right then... who is he?"

Amy demanded of the doctor in the control room

"He's me... or will be me... more accurately, I'll be him." The doctor told her

"He's the second doctor I met" River told them "the one I got to know first"

The redhead and the time lord looked surprised

"Oh yes!" River smiled knowingly "we go a long way back... he was so interesting, he knew me so well... better than I knew myself... but he was much more..." she searched for the right word "much more brooding than you are" looking at the doctor

"He's the doctor you fell for isn't he?" The Doctor asked her

"Spoilers"

In the future TARDIS, Rory stood by as the doctor groped around in the floor space, sonic in between his teeth and a tiny maglite in his hand

"- I redecorated too" he was saying to Rory

"Yeah..." the bemused young man said "it's very... retro?"

"I've been whizzing around in here for so long... in over a thousand years, this was the only theme I could stick to for any length of time. It feels homely!"

"It looks completely different"

The TARDIS had been reset to its original theme, hexagonal panels covered the walls and the tiny TARDIS console sat dead centre, adorned with retro looking lights and dials, in the corner stood a hat stand bearing a familiar wide brimmed hat and a preposterously long scarf.

"Ah hah! Got it!"

The doctor hefted a large cylindrical device out of the hole in the floor, on the outside it was like a large metal capsule which underneath glowed with a constantly shifting blue.

"Come along Rory, mustn't keep me waiting!"

They staggered out of the TARDIS, both gripping one end of the coupling and grunting with the weight.

"Ugh... surely your people could've thought of a smaller part for this job couldn't they?" Rory grunted

"No point, TARDISes are dimensionally transcendental; why save space when space is unlimited? Most time lords didn't go around throwing their ship's parts into flimsy contraptions... contraptions... I like that word, must remember to use it more often."

"Doctor!" the new Doctor and Rory shuffled into the room lugging the coupling between them "ready the contraption! Told you I'd use it" he nodded at Rory who looked back sheepishly and glanced at the younger time lord.

"Excellent" he rose from the remains of the console clicking the screwdriver shut "contraption... good word, interesting choice"

"Great word!" the elder agreed "but if that's a contraption does that make us contraptors? Does one contrapt?"

"Ok... doctors... focus here" Amy stepped in

"Indeed, the most excellent proposition... mayhaps we might... we might..." the older doctor seemed to lose his train of thought "you have lovely hair..." he looked at Amy, slightly glazed

"Doctor?"

"I was worried this might happen..." the younger doctor looked at his counterpart sorrowfully as the older man began to lose his strength, like a puppet having his strings cut. "The incident is unregulated without time lords to manage it, our experiences together are starting to affect him; his future's changing and there's nothing we can do to change it"

"You mean he's starting to change his own time stream?" River asked

"Exactly, his standing in the path of this universe is slipping"

"River, what's he talking about" Rory asked from the background

"In layman's terms, he's starting to cease to exist"

At this, the 12th doctor straightened back up with a tortured yell

"Aaaaarrrghh! No! Not yet, not this time lord!" he shuddered, shook his head side to side and immediately jumped to connecting up the coupling with the screwdriver

"Doctor... are you... alright?" Amy asked tentatively

"Perfectly" he grunted without looking up

With a buzz and a flash the coupling began to hum and vibrate, its blue glow shifted to a yellowish orange

"Swish" the doctor grinned, stowing the screwdriver back in the black coat "right, there's no guarantee any more that I'll last to the end of this so I suggest we get as much done now as we can, starting with setting up this lovely invention."

"I preferred it when it was a contraption" sulked the younger doctor

"Contraption? This isn't some rubbish bodge job! It at least qualifies as a device!"


	6. Chapter 6

With luck

"Are we good to go yet doctors?" an impatient Amy paced between the pair of time lords looking for some sign that their high tech bodge was working

"Nearly" said the closest doctor to her, the older

"Just need to arrange the fluctuation sequence" The younger sonicked a piece of switchboard nearest him

"Transfer the power inference" the older plugged in a small red wire

"Encroach on the time stream" The younger threw a switch

"Assert my dominance over the machine" the older clubbed the arxos coupling with a hammer

"WAIT!" yelled River as the black coated man continued to pound at the glowing capsule, he stopped

"Why?" she asked, exasperated

"It really hurt my arms!" he whined, shaking his arms and stamping his foot in a mock tantrum

With a swish of the sonic, the younger doctor zapped their contraption into life. A whirring sound, like an industrial lift, began as the large coupling began to vibrate and cycle through a myriad of colours. The whirring began to change, becoming more like a vibration in the ground and the floor began to noticeably shake. Then suddenly, with a huge crash, the TARDIS came falling through the ceiling, bringing down huge chunks of time lord masonry along with clods of dirt from the simulated moorland above them.

"Inside!" yelled the tweed doctor over the shaking and the wind from above and the TARDIS crew all began to clamber into the time ship

"I'll catch up!" the older doctor yelled and sprinted off down the corridor towards his own ship.

Inside the TARDIS the Doctor and River sprinted around the console, the ship gave a little leap as she took off at breakneck speed

"We've got to ride the wave that's coming off that mess down there and it might be able to blast us clear"

"What about the other doctor?" Rory demanded

"Let's worry about us for now, he can handle himself, he's me"

The TARDIS gave a lurch, hurling Amy across the control room; Rory tried to run to her and was promptly vaulted over the handrail onto the lower level landing with a crash

"Everybody just stay still!" The Doctor yelled "it's going to be a bumpy ride!"

River was thrown onto her knees, still clinging to a rail for support as Rory managed to crawl over to Amy who appeared to be knocked out and between it all, The Doctor was sprinting around like a demented housefly, desperately fighting for control. Between tremors he launched himself through one of the doorways at the edge of the room, disappearing in his tweed jacket and reappearing from a different door in his green Mac.

"You changed?" River yelled over the uproar of the TARDIS, failing once again to regain her footing

The doctor looked at himself quickly as he staggered around

"Apparently!" he shouted back

The TARDIS tilted almost onto it's side suddenly, the doctor was thrown towards the time rotor as river found herself hanging from the handrail, Rory and Amy, who had nothing to grab onto simply fell towards the outer wall before the TARDIS righted herself. River was slammed back to the ground and Rory used his body to cushion the unconscious scot's fall back to the ground.

"We've stopped" the doctor's voice came across the smoke filled room

The TARDIS was a wreck, dust fell from the ceiling and anything that wasn't stuck down had been thrown towards the wall during the sudden inversion of the room. The Doctor seemed the best for wear, his green coat was spattered with dust but he seemed otherwise ok, he helped River to her feet and began to head downstairs to help the Ponds. The Doctor was met with a befuddled Rory who was bleeding from beyond his hairline and helped him carry Amy up the stairs, easing her onto the glass floor.

"Sit" he commanded Rory, handing him a bandage.

The doctor sat in quiet thought as his friends tended to their injuries

"you know there's no telling where we've landed" he said "could have been a massive jump, could have been a quick skip to the left..."

"honestly doctor, when have we ever known where we're going?" a croaky voice piped up

Rory staggered over to Amy immediately with a plastic cup of water, his bandages perfectly tied around his head.

"here" he passed it to her, propping her up with his arm as she sipped at it.

River smiled at the two "you should travel with a nurse more often, Doctor" she nodded at the time lord.


End file.
